View full sizeAbove, Thick smoke from a burning marsh fire in New Orleans East surrounds the Louisiana Superdome in downtown New Orleans. Below, people board a streetcar as thick smoke from a burning marsh fire lingers in the air in New Orleans East in downtown New Orleans, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011. Easterly winds kept a pall of smoke from the fire over the New Orleans area for the third straight day, and the National Weather Service issued a smoke alert for seven parishes. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Heavy, acrid smoke from a marsh fire in east New Orleans that has burned at least 2,300 acres of swampland has blanketed downtown, The Times-Picayune reports.

Health officials have renewed warnings to citizens and local students to restrict outdoor activities. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality also renewed an Air Quality Alert today for the area south and southwest of Lake Pontchartrain because of the high levels of particulate matter in the smoke.

Shifting winds moved the fire's smoke plume into northern Plaquemines Parish early today and now is pushing it west into Jefferson and St. Charles parishes, according to the National Weather Service.

Officials expect the blaze to go on another 5 to 7 days.

The state environmental agency warned that smoke will continue to be a health issue for sensitive groups, including the elderly and people with asthma and other respiratory diseases. it urged people in those groups to avoid prolonged outdoor activities and exertion.

In other Gulf Coast region news:

Car wash owner stops burglar by hanging on to suspect’s A sh owner in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, stopped a burglary to his business by grabbing on to the suspect’s hood and hanging on for dear life, the Northwest Florida Daily News reports. Tom Tona told officers he saw a man identified as Maurice DeShawn McCorvey taking items from his storage shed. Tona tried to approach McCorvey but he ran. As Tona pursued, he saw McCorvey’s girlfriend parked nearby and approached the vehicle. Tona stood in front of the vehicle and refused to move. When McCorvey’s girlfriend hit the gas, Tona held on to the hood for about 100 yards before the driver stopped. Police arrived shortly thereafter to make the arrests.

3 Pensacola boys arrested for graffiti: Three boys were arrested over the weekend in Pensacola, Florida, for spraying graffiti on buildings downtown, the Pensacola News Journal reports. The boys — ages 12, 12 and 13 — were charged with criminal mischief. The graffiti ranged from lewd pictures to vulgarities spray painted on 3 downtown buildings.

Couple identified in Metarie murder/suicide: Yosaria and Francisco Fernandez were identified as the names of the husband and wife killed in a murder/suicide at a Metarie, Louisiana, apartment complex on Monday, The Times-Picayune reports. Investigators determined that Francisco Fernandez, 32, approached his wife, Yosaria, 31, in the back parking lot of the complex where they both lived and shot her several times. He then turned the gun on himself. Yosaria Fernandez was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead. Francisco Fernandez was pronounced dead at the scene.